Guest links

Main Menu

Dating electrical transformers

Photo of one of Michael Faraday's original wire-coiled iron rings, courtesy of the Royal Institution, where Faraday did his experiments.

He went on to use his principle of electro-magnetic induction to invent the electric generator, which is the subject of another page on this site ...A standard piece of switchgear in distribution systems comprising of switches for switching power cable rings and of switches in series with fuses for the protection of distrbution transformers. Depending on your applications and loading conditons you can use a swicth fuse combination or a circuit breaker to protect the transformer. Alongside, it also protects your secondary side transformer from the occasional transient currents.You can transform up or down, depending how you displace the copper wires.If coil B has twice the number of windings than coil A, the voltage is reduced by half.Photo of a galvanometer dating from 1800, courtesy of the Royal Institution.

This is much more like the galvanometer Faraday would have used.

Repeatedly switching the power on and off generates what we call alternating current (AC), since the current swaps back and forth between the two coils.

This principle is the basis for much of our modern public electricity supply.

electrical generator A recreation of Faraday's experiment Behind the ring you can see the small battery used to supply the current.

It is connected to the copper wire coil on one side of the ring. ) jumble of wire in the middle is the connection from the other coil to a modern galvanometer, the needle of which is shown at rest, after the transient effect that ocurred when the battery was first connected.

However, the effect quickly fades and the needle soon detects no current, even though the battery is still connected.